Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono Tuesday called on both Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen and White House Press Sarah Huckabee Sanders to resign their positions, saying both women have "sold their souls" to lie for the Trump administration.
The Hawaii Democrat was particularly angered over Nielsen, telling MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program that she was "trotted forward" with a press conference concerning the separation of children from parents coming across the southern border to "put some kind of nice frame on this, calling it not a policy. That's a lie."
Sanders, she added, "lies on a regular basis. All the people around the president who lie for him in order to keep their jobs, they have sold their souls. I would welcome their resignations."
Hirono Tuesday drew a parallel to the growing controversy about the children who have been separated from their families to the Japanese-American camps that were set up during World War II, saying she agrees with former First Lady Laura Bush's same characterization of the issue.
"When you think about 120,000 Japanese-Americans, I say they were incarcerated because they were behind barbed wire with armed guards," said Hirono.
"That's what we're doing the little children, tearing them from their parents' arms is very akin to what happened, I would say, to Japanese Americans and very dark period of our history."
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump continues to "play games with people's lives to get what he wants, whether it's the 800,000 DACA participants or now the little children at our borders to get what he wants and then," said Hirono.
"Par for the course, when he can't come up with a rational explanation, he lies about it or blames the Democrats or both. He never takes responsibility for the harm that he causes."
Republicans are also starting to come forward to blame the policy on Trump, she added.
"He can change this policy, this practice right now," said Hirono. "It doesn't have to be this way and for him to continue to put all the blame on Democrats, that's his usual practice, the Republicans are coming forward finally and I'm glad and I want more of them to step up to say this is not what our country stands for. We don't stand for tearing apart children from their parents."
Hirono pointed out that she is an immigrant whose mother brought her to the United States from Japan when she was just seven years old in the early 1950s.
"She was our sole support," said the junior senator. "I didn't have a father. She was working all day and my brother, and I would wait for her at the bus stop because we were latch key kids."
She noted that she did not speak English at all, "and I just put myself in the shoes of these kids. If my mother was taken away from me, I don't know what would have happened to me and my brothers."
Hirono also said that she does believe that even though there are Republicans speaking out against the separation practice, there are many others, particularly in the House will slow-walk legislation, as they "really like what the president is doing."
"You know, we just heard that there may be more tougher immigration policies coming down the pike from the likes of Stephen Miller," said Hirono. "To me, Stephen Miller is like Iago, whispering in the president's ear along with John Kelly. These people are totally anti-immigrant."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.